Picker drive



Aug. 25, 1959 J Filed Dec. 30, 1953 J. A. QUINN ET AL PICKER DRIVE 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 JAMES A. Q N

and

JOHNNY Qumm.

IXVENTORS.

ATTORNEY J. A. QUINN ET AL Aug. 25, 19 59 PICKER DRIVE 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Dec. 30, 1953 JAMES A. QUINN 371d JOHNNY OumN.

INVENTORS- ATTORNEY PICKER DRIVE Application December 30, 1953, Serial No. 401,144

3 Claims. 01. 19-70 This invention relates to pickers and more especially to a direct drive which makes it possible for the picker evener mechanism to control directly the rate at which fibers are fed thereto.

Most of the pickers in present operation employ What is known as a blending reserve which feeds fibers to the evener mechanism and directly controls the thickness of the lap. The mechanism which feeds the fibers into the blending reserve is driven from what is known as the doffer beater which is customarily disposed adjacent the top of the blending reserve. A mercury switch is provided to actuate mechanism for disengaging this drive between the dofier beater and said feeding mechanism when too much fibrous material is in the blending reserve. This causes a cessation of feeding into the blending reserve and by the time the switch again engages the drive to begin feeding fibers into the blending reserve the blending reserve has become so exhausted that the evener mechanism can not slow down suificiently rapidly to compensate for this deficiency of fibers in the blending reserve, thus causing a thin spot in the lap.

' It'is essential that the thickness of the lap be held Unit Sims atent within certain limits of departure from the desired thickness since any great variation in thickness can not be compensated for in the carding operation and the subsequent steps necessary to convert the lap into yarn of the desired weight. Too great departures from the desired lap thickness are, therefore, a major cause of seconds and cause'trouble in each of the operations necessary to produce a finished fabric.

Accordingly, it is an object of our invention to eliminate this cause of seconds by providing means for producing a relatively constant feed of fibers into the evener mechanism.

" It is another object of our invention'to provide an attachment for standard pickers which will make possible the elimination of the expensiveblending reserve and make possible a superior lap from the standpoint of variations in thickness. .0 I It is still another object of our invention to provide an attachment which is simple and sturdy of construction and with few moving parts to facilitate the production of a superior lap from the standpoint of thickness variation and which will make possible the elimination of much of the complicated machinery employed at present to thereby cut down maintenance costs.

Our invention consists generally of a direct drive from the evener mechanism to the mechanism for driving the means for feeding fibers into the evener mechanism.

Our invention further includes the combination of a picking machine having a driven evener mechanism and means for feeding fibers into the evener mechanism and means driven by the evener mechanism for driving said means for feeding fibers into the evener mechanism whereby, a variation in the amount of fibers passing through the evener mechanism will cause a commensurate variation in the amount of fibers fed into the evener mechanism.

We further accomplish objects of our invention by 2 providing an attachment for a picking machine having an evener mechanism and means for feeding fibers into the evener mechanism comprising a direct drive responsive to changes in the speed of the evener mechanism adapted to drive said means for feeding fibers into the evener mechanism. V

While some of the objects of our invention have been stated above, others will appear to those skilled in the art relating to picking equipment as the following description is read in connection with the accompanying drawings in which:

Fig. l is a side elevation of a two-section picken ineluding an automatic feeder, an opener or breaker picker, an intermediate picker, an evener section and a finishing picker, V

Fig. 2 is an enlarged view of the evener section of the picker shown in Fig. 1, i

Fig. 3 is a sectional view through the evener mechanism as shown in Fig. 2 and Fig. 4 is an enlarged plan view with the cover broken away, of our improved driving means for the intermediate picker, breaker or opener picker, and the automatic feeder, taken substantially along line 44 in Figure2.

Referring more particularly to the drawings, the numeral 10 broadly designates an automatic feeder which serves to feed cotton or blended fibers to the opener or breaker picker broadly designated at 12. After passing through the opener or breaker picker 12 the fibers are conducted in the form of a crude lap to the intermediate picker 14, from whence they pass in the form of a lap to the evener section 16.

In the conventional picking machine the lap passes from the intermediate picker 14 to a blending reserve (not shown) where an opening operation takes place and from the blending reserve, in a loose state, to the evener motion or evener mechanism 16. The blending reserve normallyserves as a cleaning unit and as an aid in the blending process but its most important function is to control the lap weight or thickness. From the evener section 16, the fibers pass through the finishing picker 18 and into the dofling mechanism 20.

Figs. 2 and 3 show the evener mechanism in detail and Fig. 2 shows the direct drive attachment associated therewith. The picker frame is indicated at 22 and the evener roll 24 is shown transversely disposed therein. The lap 26 is shown passing beneath the evener roll 24 and over the usual pedals 28. Each of the pedals has fixed connection with a lever 30 and these pedals open and close to a degree determined by the amount of fibers passing thereover. The levers 30 are provided with a linkage arrangement 32 for transmitting the motion imparted thereto by the pedals through a transverse lever 34 tofa link 36 which has pivotal connection therewith so that the link 36 will be moved up and down an amount proportional to the amount of fibers passing over the pedals 28. This link 36 is provided With a turn-buckle 40 to make adjustments in the distance between the pedals 28 and the evener'roll 24 to thus determine the thic'kness'of the lap 26 as will be more fully explained below.

The bell-crank 38, which has pivotal connection with the link 36 at its upper end, is pivotally carried so as to transmit motion to the belt 42 through the link 44 and the linkage arrangement broadly designatedat 46. This belt 42 is disposed over a pair of superposed cone pulleys 48 and 50 disposed in the usual cone box 51. It will be noted that the cone pulley 48 is driven by the shaft 52 and that the cone pulley 50 is driven by the cone pulley 48 by means of the belt 42. This pulley 50in turn drives the evener roll 24 through the usual well known drive means (not shown). The usual clutch (not shown) is provided to disengage this drive means during the dofiing operation. It will be noted therefore that an unusually large amount of fibrous material passing between the evener roll 24 and the pedals 28 will cause the belt 42 to be pulled by the linkage 46 to the large side of the cone pulley 50 to then slow the evener roll 24. Conversely an unusually small amount of fibrous material will cause the evener roll to speed up.

The various parts of the evener mechanism described are well known to those skilled in the art and for the purpose of use with this invention may be of any suitable type.

Fig. 4 shows the improved drive attachment broadly designated at 54 secured to the cone box 51 by any suitable means such as bolts 53. The attachment 54 com.- prises a housing 56 and a power take-off shaft 58 suitably connected on one end to the pulley 50. At the end of the shaft 58 remote from the pulley 50 are a pair of meshing bevel gears 60 and 62. It will be noted that the gear 62 is mounted on the shaft 64 at right angles to the shaft 58 and is provided with suitable bearings 66 and 68. The shaft 64 projects outside the casing 56 and a pulley 70 is fixedly mounted thereon. Driving means in the form of a belt 72 is disposed on the pulley 70 and normally drives the pulley 74 which is fixedly mounted on the shaft 76 (see Fig. 2) on which is mounted a gear 78 which meshes with the gear 80 which in turn drives a bevel gear 82 which is positioned on the end of the shaft 84 which through the usual or other suitable drive means controls the speed of the intermediate picker, the opener or breaker picker and the automatic feeder and hence the speed of the fibrous material passing therethrough. An idler pulley 86 is also carried by the shaft 76 adjacent the pulley 74. This idler pulley makes it possible to disengage the driving shaft 84 during the dofiing operation by transferring the belt 72 from the pulley 74 to the idler pulley 86 by suitable mechanism (not shown). It is thus seen that the means for feeding fibers to the evener mechanism are directly controlled thereby.

This improved drive results in the positive driving of the feed mechanism of the automatic feeder 10, the opener picker 12, the intermediate picker 14 and the evener roll 24, at the same speed without cessation, except for doffiing, since all these feed mechanisms are positively driven and the speed thereof controlled by the evener mechanism 16 rather than by the doifer beater normally at the top of the blending reserve as has heretofore been the case. The various heaters, etc., are driven by the usual means (not shown).

Results of test have shown that our improved drive makes it possible for the conventional picker equipped therewith to produce laps of such uniform thickness, that they invariably fall within the limits allowable for departure from the desired thickness. If desired the blending reserve may be utilized, however, it is often desirable to omit the same since the cleaning accomplished thereby can be performed by speeding up the beater operation of the various picker sections. Since blending operations are usually carried out before the fibers enter the automatic feeder there is normally no blending operation to be carried out in the blending reserve thus making it possible to eliminate the blending reserve without the sacrifice of any desirable results produced thereby. Tests have also shown that better laps are produced by eliminating the blending reserve than are produced when the blending reserve is retained.

Our improved drive has been described as including a power take-off in the form of bevel gears, a pulley and a belt driven by the pulley, however, any suitable type of direct drive may be employed such as a gear train, a sprocket chain or a V-belt, and these could be employed equally as etfectively.

While a preferred embodiment of our invention has been described using specific terms, such description is for illustrative purposes only, and it is to be understood that changes and variations may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.

We claim as our invention:

1. In a picker having an evener mechanism having the usual driven lower cone pulley and upper cone pulley, an automatic feeder, an opener picker, an intermediate picker, a finishing picker, mechanical means directly driving the feeding mechanism of said automatic feeder, opener picker and intermediate picker and means driven by the evener for feeding fibers into the finishing picker, said evener mechanism being positioned immediately preceding said finishing picker the improvement including, an axial shaft fixed with respect to the upper cone pulley, power take-off means connected to and driven directly by said shaft, and mechanical drive means connected to said power take-off means directly driving the mechanical means directly driving the feeding mechanism of said automatic feeder, opener picker, and intermediate picker.

2. An attachment for a picking machine as set forth in claim 1, in which said power take-off means includes a pair of bevel gears and in which said mechanical drive means includes pulley means driven by said bevel gears.

3. An attachment for a picker having an evener mechanism having the usual driven lower cone pulley and upper cone pulley, an automatic feeder, an opener picker, an

. intermediate picker, a finishing picker, mechanical means directly driving the feeding mechanism of said automatic feeder, opener picker and intermediate picker and means driven by the evener for feeding fibers into the finishing picker, said evener mechanism being positioned immediately preceding said finishing picker including a first shaft fixed with respect to the upper cone pulley in axial alignment therewith, a first bevel gear fixedly carried by said first shaft, a second shaft rotatably supported at right angles to said first shaft, a second bevel gear fixedly carried by said second shaft meshing with said first bevel gear, and mechanical drive means connected to said second shaft directly driving the mechanical means directly driving the feeding mechanism of said automatic feeder, opener picker and intermediate picker.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,595,466 Hardman Aug. 10, 1926 1,777,245 Arnold Sept. 30, 1930 1,908,294 Howe May 9, 1933 1,945,259 Curley Ian. 30, 1934 2,028,698 Curley et a1 Jan. 21, 1936 

